to Buffalo to G-Force and they worked on it all week ,” Ward says . “ Jim worked on it and had to put a new four-link bracket in and pretty much back-halved the one side of the car to get it ready . I picked it up the next Saturday , got home Sunday , put the car together , and left Sunday evening to drive to Florida for the World Series .”
Ward ’ s troubles continued in pre-race testing when he wounded the screw-blown , Mike Stawicki Racing-built engine on his second test pass . His team swapped in a new engine and a fresh oil pump and prepared for Friday ’ s first qualifying session , where it seemed another issue arose .
“ We went up there and had no oil pressure , so I cut it off and went back to the pits ,” Ward says . “ Went over everything , started it , had oil pressure , everything was good . Went back up there for Q2 – again , no oil pressure . I was like , ‘ I ’ m not running this thing , I ’ m not blowing it up .’ We took it back to the pits , and come to find out the sensors were bad on the car . We had oil pressure . I ended up going and buying a little mechanical gauge and mounting it to my blower and we ran that all weekend for oil pressure .”
Ward finished Friday ’ s three qualifying sessions outside the 32-car field . In the fourth session on Saturday , he threw down a 3.660 at 206.32 MPH to get into the show in the No . 24 spot . With the final night session left to run , Ward knew he wasn ’ t safely in the field . He recorded a 3.637 at 206.57 to jump up to the No . 15 spot , just inside the top half of the quickest 32-car Pro Modified field of all time .
“ We were so excited just to qualify ,” Ward says . “ The night before we were close to the bump . We just wanted to qualify to race . We have not not qualified for a race . It was just exciting to get into that race because of how big the stakes were .”
Ward drew a fellow reigning series champion , three-time PDRA Pro Nitrous world champion Tommy Franklin , in the opening round . Franklin , who qualified third in his Musi-powered “ Jungle Rat ” ’ 69 Camaro , left the line just a thousandth ahead of Ward . The two remained side-by-side down the entire eighth-mile track , with Ward finishing first with his 3.70 at 206.26 to Franklin ’ s 3.71 at 204.66 .
“ First round was tough . Every round was tough , but I had Franklin first round ,” Ward says . “ We were dead even on the tree and I ran a little bit faster . I got him by nine thousandths at the stripe . It was a really close race .”
Ward was the second-quickest driver in the second round with his 3.684 at 205.98 to take
WARD ’ S CREW , ALONG WITH BLOWN ALCOHOL SPECIALISTS LIKE JON AND JIM SALEMI AND JEFF PIERCE , JUMPED IN TO DIAGNOSE THE ISSUE WHEN WARD ’ S ’ 68 FIREBIRD WOULDN ’ T FIRE UP FOR THE FINAL ROUND .
106 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated . com Issue 188